The first free practice session of the 81^st Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix saw seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton show that his Mercedes is definitely improving, while Max Verstappen had to make do with 11^th place…

There are several good reasons for Formula 1 fans to keep a close eye on what’s going to happen until Sunday in the Principality, for the 8^th round of the Formula 1 World Championship. The first is that Mercedes is improving, as demonstrated by Lewis Hamilton’s best time in the first free practice session early on Friday afternoon. In front of Sir Jackie Stewart, always happy to spend some time in the Principality at the end of May.

By switching to a set of soft tyres at the end of the session, Sir Lewis, a three-time winner of this Monaco GP and already on the podium seven times in 16 appearances, was able to complete his best lap in 1:12.169. Enough to finish at the very top of the timesheet, something he hadn’t done since the 2^nd free practice session in Bahrain at the end of February, for the first round of the year. And seven months earlier in Hungary, during the 3^rd free practice session.

As luck would have it, his young compatriot and team-mate George Russell completed the picture by taking 3^rd place in this session, sandwiched between the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri (2^nd, just 29 thousandths behind Hamilton) and Lando Norris, winner of the Miami GP last month. The session was interrupted for a few minutes by a red flag, just long enough for the ever-efficient ACM stewards to clear away the debris left by a touchdown by Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou (Kick Sauber).

The tifosi had everything to cheer about at the start of the session, when Charles Leclerc topped the timesheets on the giant screens in Monaco harbour, just ahead of Carlos Sainz. But the Ferraris finished the session less well, with the Monegasque in 5^th place, just ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), and the Spaniard in 10^th, ahead of Max Verstappen (Red Bull). The Dutch star has a good excuse: he never used soft tires, choosing to prepare the race on Sunday by working on the setup of the RB20 with medium and hard tyres.

The big question this Friday is whether Max Verstappen, who showed himself to be a little worried on Thursday in the press conference, was hiding his game in anticipation of Saturday, or whether he was just being honest and lucid about the level of performance of his Red Bull on this very specific track. We’ll know more at 6pm on Friday, at the end of the second free practice session scheduled for this afternoon…

First Practice Session Classification

Italy’s Gabriele Mini (Prema Racing), last year’s winner in the Principality, will once again start from pole position to attempt the double at 8am on Sunday, in the main race of the FIA Formula 3 Championship, at the 81^st Formula 1 Grand Prix of Monaco.

Mini, a member of the Alpine Drivers Academy, was already fastest in free practice on Thursday, but he had to wait until the very end of this session, in bright sunshine, to snatch pole position from Great Britain’s Luke Browning (HiTech): with a time of 1:23.942, Mini was the only driver to go under the one minute and 24 seconds mark on his last attempt, at an average speed of 143 km/h on the streets of the Principality.

Browning finished two tenths of a second behind Mini and he was just 65 thousandths ahead of another Italian, Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident), who leads the Championship after six races. The places of honour were taken by Spaniard Mari Boya (Campos Racing) in 4^th place, and Mexican Noel Leon (Van Amersfoort Racing) in 5^th. They will all start from the same side of the grid on Sunday morning, assigned to this qualifying Group A.

In the other group (B), the best time was set by Australian Christian Mansell, who has no known relation to Nigel, the Williams world champion. But as there is a one-second gap between Mini’s time and Mansell’s (1:24.921), the Italian driver will be on pole position on Sunday morning.

For Saturday’s Sprint race, the grid will be reversed for the top twelve drivers at the end of qualifications, both groups mixed. And young Frenchman Sami Meguetounif (Trident) will have a lot of work, starting in the middle of the grid for both races of the weekend. The winner at Imola last Sunday, he missed his qualifying session and even hit the rail at Sainte-Dévote, ending with 7^th fastest time of Group B, the slowest of the two.

Sprint Race Provisional Starting Grid

Monegasque Charles Leclerc has yet to stand on the princely podium at the Monaco Grand Prix since making his F1 debut in 2018, but that’s not his aim this year: “Finishing second or third doesn’t interest me, it doesn’t really excite me. I’m aiming for victory, nothing else, and I think that with the progress Ferrari has made this year, I can achieve that. There’s less of a gap between Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari. Everything will depend on qualifying on Saturday, because if I’m on pole position on Sunday, I know I’ll have a good chance of winning the race”, said the local hero on Thursday at the FIA press conference.

As he does every year, the relaxed Leclerc spoke of everything that makes Monaco an “extra-special” event, because he was born in the Principality, because he lives here and because he knows every inch of Circuit de Monaco. “We have a better car, Imola showed that, we’re moving in the right direction”, the Ferrari driver also emphasised. He also spoke of the notion of risk, and explained that in Monaco everything depends on risk assessment

« I think what you have in Monaco that you have maybe a little bit less on other tracks, on other city tracks as well, is just a risk assessment. And that’s where a driver can make a bit more the difference by taking more risk. It either pays off or not at all. But this is something that I particularly appreciate from this track. As soon as you try and go a bit more on the limit, you straight away see it on the lap time. And obviously coming into Q3, having done so many laps, you start to get pretty close with the walls. But it’s exciting. I don’t get that feeling anywhere else on the calendar. So I think risk assessment is what makes the difference here in Monaco ».

On the subject of risk, Max Verstappen, the three-time reigning world champion and two-time winner in the Principality (2021, 2023), added a very specific comment for the young drivers: “You have to make mistakes to progress. It’s important to make them because even though you tell yourself all the time I cannot do this or I cannot do that, you will only adapt really if you make them and then move forward”. During this very relaxed conference, the leader of Red Bull Racing, but also of the younger generation, was listened to very attentively by the other participants, George Russell (Mercedes), Alex Albon (Williams), Yuki Tsunoda (RB) and Esteban Ocon (Alpine).

To add a little more excitement for the fans, on the eve of the first two free practice sessions on Friday afternoon, Russell indicated that his Mercedes was also making “progress”, and that all the work carried out over the last few weeks, and the recent developments, had made it “more consistent over a lap, better balanced between slow and fast corners”. This gives cause for hope on the Monaco circuit, which generally limits the differences in pure performance and compensates for them with more aggressive driving, close to the safety rails.

All the drivers present agreed on one point: Saturday will be crucial, and anything is possible in qualifying. Just like last year, when Esteban Ocon put in a fantastic lap in his Alpine to secure 3rd place on the grid, just behind Verstappen. He then turned that into a fine 3rd place on the princely podium, his only podium in 2023 (two for Alpine with Pierre Gasly in Zandvoort). That’s what Monaco is all about.

British driver Harry King failed to win last year’s Porsche Supercup (3^rd overall) due to two retirements, despite being the most successful driver in 2023 in motorsport’s most prestigious single-make series. He is still driving for Lechner Racing, by far the best team in the category, and he will be doing his utmost to dominate this season. But it’s going to be long and hard, against some very strong rivals…

King set the fastest time in free practice on Thursday in Monaco, but he will have to watch out all weekend, in particular, for two Dutch drivers: Jaap van Lagen, entered by the Italians of Dinamic Motorsport, and above all Larry ten Voorde, the double Porsche Supercup champion (2020 and 2021), who won last Sunday in Imola… ahead of Harry King.

Ten Voorde left Lechner Racing this winter to become the leader of the French Schumacher CLRT structure. He remains a prime rival for King, once again this weekend in Monaco. The top three in this free practice session, King, van Lagen and ten Voorde, are all within just three-tenths of a second of each other. This promises an eventful qualifying session on Friday, from 6.45pm, which will round off a day of battles on all levels. The ultimate rewards will be the best places on the starting grids.

The interesting thing about this 2^nd round of the Porsche Supercup, of the eight scheduled this season as curtain raisers to the European Formula 1 Grands Prix, is that in 2024 there is a whole new generation of drivers, as young as they are talented, determined to shake up the established order of recent years, like the last two champions of the discipline, aged 20 and 25.

During Thursday’s session, the ‘rookies’ also made their presence felt. There were four of them in the Top 9, including Frenchman Victor Bernier (8^th), entered by another French team, Martinet by Alméras. So just one piece of advice: if you’ve got grandstand seats, stay until the end of the day on Friday to watch the Porsche Supercup qualifying session. You won’t be disappointed…

Practice Session Classification

The two French drivers competing in Formula 2 at the 81^st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco, Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) and Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing), shone in Thursday’s free practice session, which was run on rain tyres on the Circuit de Monaco’s sodden track in very poor visibility conditions.

The wet session, which got underway shortly after 3pm, saw Martins set his fastest lap of 1:39.237. A good start for a potential renaissance, after suffering a very tough start of the season, scoring 9 points only in 8 races.

This very decent time put Martins at the top of the time sheet, 6 tenths of a second ahead of Norway’s Dennis Hauger (MP Motorsport). Dutchman Richard Verschoor (Trident) had to make do with third place, half a second ahead of Hadjar, when the track was still in decent condition.

After eight races in 2024, the provisional leader of the FIA Formula 2 Championship is Zane Maloney (Rodin Motorsport), a native of Barbados who dreams of a future like that of Lewis Hamilton, the 7-time world champion who also hails from the West Indies. As for 17-year-old Italian prodigy Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli, backed by Mercedes, he managed to finish 8^th in this wet session, for his debut at Monaco.

Maloney leads the provisional overall standings ahead of Estonian Paul Aron (HiTech), 9^th in this session, and Hadjar, the real man in form at the moment: the young Frenchman has just collected 50 points in the last two Feature Races, on Sunday morning in Melbourne and Imola.

Qualifying gets underway on Friday at 3.10pm, in two groups of 11 drivers. Anything is possible for pole position.

Practice session classification

Photo © Formula 2

Italy’s Gabriele Mini (Prema Racing) set the fastest time in the one and only free practice session for Formula 3 at the 81^st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco, just 91 thousandths clear of his compatriot Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident).

The session began on slick tyres, on a dry track, and ended 45 minutes later on rain tyres, in order to start preparing for the rest of the Monaco weekend where, as usual, there will be lots of surprises, not just in terms of the weather.

Several drivers made mistakes, but without too much damage, and each time the marshals of Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) did their job perfectly, clearing the track in record time. Mini, who won last year’s Feature Race in Monaco from pole position, made it clear that he intends to remain the boss in the Principality, even though he changed team this winter. He set a time of 1:27.400 and completed a total of 19 laps, as did Fornaroli and another favourite this weekend, Sweden’s Dino Beganovic, his team-mate at Prema.

Meguetounif in 4^th place!

Behind this infernal trio, grouped together in just over one second, a young Frenchman, rookie Sami Meguetounif (Trident), the winner last Sunday at Imola of his first F3 race, posted the 4^th fastest time in this session, but two seconds behind Mini. And he also provoked one of the three red flags of this very intense free practice session.

The Top 6 was completed by a Briton with a French name, Callum Voisin (Rodin Motorsport), ahead of an Australian with a famous name, Christian Mansell (ART GP), but who is not related to Nigel, the British world champion. For the record, Sebastian Montoya (Campos), son of the famous Juan Pablo, had to make do with 13^th place, ahead of the only female driver entered, Sophia Floersch (21^st), who races for Van Amersfoort Racing.

After six races in Bahrain, Australia and Imola, Fornaroli leads the provisional FIA Formula 3 Championship standings, ahead of Luke Browning (Hi-Tech), Beganovic and Mini. Qualifications are scheduled for Friday, from 11.05am, for two groups of 15 drivers.

Practice session classification

As is the case every year around the time of the Cannes Film Festival, a host of stars arrived in the Principality for the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco. And the line-up is very attractive, with a trio of stars entered by three ‘top teams’: Max Verstappen of course, the three-time reigning world champion and still dominant in his Red Bull RB20, Charles Leclerc, the local hero, in his Ferrari, and a new kid on the block, Lando Norris, whose McLaren is improving at every Grand Prix.

In Miami, England’s Norris has joined a very select circle of 114 drivers having won a Formula 1 Grand Prix, out of the thousand or so who have taken part in at least one race since 1950. And even if his record is still slim (1 win, 1 pole position, 6 fastest laps, 17 podium finishes), at the age of 24, he is a driver on the rise. Need another proof? Since the start of 2024 which, like the previous two seasons, has been dominated by Red Bull (5 wins in 7 races), Norris has finished on the podium four times. And last Sunday at Imola, he threatened ‘Max the Menace’ right to the end, finishing just 7 tenths behind the insatiable Dutchman.

He was also on the podium at Imola, in front of thousands of delighted tifosi: Charles Leclerc, back to his best and still in the hunt for a prestigious win in Monaco. A win that has always eluded him since 2018, when he made his F1 debut in a Ferrari-powered Sauber. Twice, in 2021 and 2022, Charles started from pole position, with all eyes on the Sainte-Dévote bend, but never yet has the Monegasque driver managed to stand on the most coveted podium of the F1 season, in the box of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco.

So, of course, Max Verstappen is the great favourite for this 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco, but he too had to wait a long time before winning in the streets of the Principality, in 2021, in his sixth F1 season. He did it again in 2023 and still has the ultimate weapon on track, but his rivals are getting organised, making progress and doing everything in their power, at every Grand Prix, to try and beat him, in qualifying and in the race. This has already happened twice this year, thanks to Carlos Sainz (victory in Australia) and Lando Norris (victory in Miami). It will be the case again this weekend at Circuit de Monaco, where the slightest mistake is paid for in cash.

Sainz, Piastri and Pérez, the outsiders

Even the Red Bull Racing team is not immune to error, bad strategy, bad timing or bad luck following a racing incident. This gives a little hope to Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari, Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren and even Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull. The Mexican loves Monaco too, and he has already won in the Principality, in 2022. It was one of ‘Checo’s’ six F1 victories, for a very experienced driver who has already taken 264 Grand Prix starts since 2011.

As this is the Monaco Grand Prix, and the 30th anniversary of Ayrton Senna’s tragic death at Imola, there will be plenty of talk all weekend about the Brazilian champion, who holds the all-time record for wins (6) in Monaco. There will be a special livery for the McLarens of Norris and Piastri, unveiled on Wednesday evening in a small gathering at the brand’s distributor in Monaco. It will be visible on Friday, on the track and in the homes of millions of fans around the world, for the first free practice session of this 81stFormula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco.

F2, F3 and Porsche Supercup open on Thursday!

The drivers entered for the support races will get the ball rolling on Thursday afternoon, while the F1 drivers complete their Media Day ritual.

During three free practice sessions, essential for fine-tuning cars before Friday’s qualifying, the winners of last weekend’s races in Imola will be in action again: Frenchmen Isack Hadjar, currently third in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, and Sami Meguetounif, who has just won for the first time in Formula 3; German Oliver Goethe, who won the F3 Sprint race on Saturday, and Italian Franco Colapinto, who won the F2 Sprint; Dutchman Larry ten Voorde, a two-time Porsche Supercup champion, who also won at Imola.

Everything is set for a super show all weekend in the streets of the Principality… and on all your screens!

They had to wait two years, but the thousands of nostalgic fans who came to the 14th Grand Prix de Monaco Historique over the weekend were in for a treat: more than 200 gleaming vintage racing cars, in perfect condition and capable of remarkable performances. So many talented drivers, both professional and amateur, and above all a public that was more than ever in attendance, especially women and younger spectators. After the success of the 7th E-Prix at the end of April, the Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) has once again proved that it knows how to organise outstanding motor sport events to perfection.

Cars first. There were over 50 makes represented and Lotus took the lion’s share of the honours, with 3 victories in 8 events on Sunday for the legendary brand founded by Colin Chapman : Andy Middlehurst in the B-Series, at the wheel of a Lotus 25 once driven by Jim Clark; Max Smith-Hilliard in the C-Series, the one for sports cars from the 1950s; and just like the icing on an English cake, Japan’s Katsuoka Kubota in the D-Series, aboard a priceless Lotus 72 which allowed Ronnie Peterson to claim a podium spot at Monaco F1 Grand Prix, in 1973.

And that’s not all. Other legendary makes of motor sport also shone, starting with ERA in the A1 Series, that of pre-war small cars and Grand Prix cars, thanks to an Irishman, Paddins Dowling, who was untouchable throughout the weekend. The same goes for Germany’s Claudia Hürtgen in her Ferrari Dino 246, who finished 20 seconds ahead in the A2 race, early on Sunday morning.

Lotus, McLaren, Hesketh, March on top!

‘Last but not least’, as the English say, on the top of the menu, there were four series for modern or recent F1s, powered by naturally-aspirated V8 or V12 engines, all of which had raced between the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 80s. In F1, these now legendary cars had to make way for turbocharged F1 cars, then hybrid powered F1s. But not in Monaco, where their more powerful heirs are too difficult for amateurs and collectors to drive.

So a Lotus won the D-Series, followed by a McLaren M23 in the E-Series, a Hesketh 308 in the F-Series and a March 821 in the G-Series. Beating a myriad of other brands, such as Ferrari, Williams, Brabham, Tyrrell, Arrows, Shadow, Benetton, etc. Three British brands, with two British drivers, Stuart Hall (2 wins) and Michael Lyons, who were very effective in these single-seaters, all of them built before they were born.

Tributes to Ayrton Senna

On this subject of birth, Hall was born in 1984, the same year when Ayrton Senna appeared in F1, and when his star began to rise during a Monaco Grand Prix that has gone down in history. Senna’s career was the main theme of this weekend like no other, with a parade of his single-seaters on Saturday (Toleman, Lotus, McLaren), then the presence of the Senna family (Bianca, Paola, Bruno) in the paddock and on the princely podium on Sunday, to reward the last winner of the day, Stuart Hall, who left with an original figurine representing the Brazilian champion.

Ayrton Senna, Gilles Villeneuve, Niki Lauda, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, Louis Chiron, Juan Manuel Fangio and Vittorio Marzotto are names written in gold letters in the F1 and ACM books. They were mentioned by fans and commentators throughout the weekend, as they were allocated to the eight series of cars, spread in chronological order. With a figurine inspired by comic strip hero “Antoine le Pilote” for each winner on Sunday. In front of a delighted audience.

This is the other lesson to be learned from this 14^th edition of Grand Prix de Monaco Historique : classic car racing is no longer the preserve of a minority of older and wealthy fans; it now attracts a younger, more feminine audience, at events that have become great popular festivals. Because there’s noise, fighting on the track, friendly drivers that you can talk to and, above all, racing cars that are works of art. Cars that ordinary people can admire, touch, see and hear, on site or via streaming platforms. With a charm that is unaffected by the passage of time. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The last race of this wonderful weekend, and of a long Sunday, was the G-Series, a vibrant tribute to Ayrton Senna in the presence of several members of his family (Bianca, Paola and Bruno who gave the cups and awards on the podium). And as luck would have it, a driver born in 1984, Briton Stuart Hall, won the race. In 1984, the year the Brazilian star began to rise in the F1 sky, during a memorable race in the Principality of Monaco that was interrupted by a deluge of rain. Forty years later, the sun was out and 39-year-old Stuart Hall let no one stop him from winning for the second time on Sunday. It was also his 5th win in a Monaco Grand Prix (Historique), following an inaugural success in 2016 and two more in 2022. On paper, he is now on a par with his glorious elder Graham Hill, a five-time F1 winner in the Principality in the last century. “I have to thank the stewards, because they did a fantastic job throughout the weekend”, emphasised the hero of the day, who has also made his mark in endurance racing, in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and at Le Mans 24 Hours (4th in 2007). A very fine winner, in a March 821 which had never won at Monaco… until this Sunday. Thanks to the talent of its driver, it beat two Lotuses, those of Marco Werner and Michael Lyons, and three Tyrrells. Two reference brands and benchmarks in the long history of F1.